Q: My wife is not a tidy person. In fact, our house is a mess most of the time.
I have tried to tell her how she might make the place a bit neater, but she ignores me and continues on as before.
I was raised by a fastidiously tidy lady. I know what a neat house looks like and I know how to make it neat. How can I get my wife to listen to me and tidy up the house?
A: You need to start by understanding who has the problem here.
Read Also
Sask. ag group wants strychnine back
The Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan has written to the federal government asking for emergency use of strychnine to control gophers
Your wife does not have a problem. She is bouncing through life in her own unique and wonderful way.
You are the one with the problem. You get upset when your house is not tidy and you fret about it for who knows how long each and every day.
When you are asking your wife to run a neater house, you are asking her to fix your problem, not hers.
A number of options are open to you once you have taken ownership of your problem and admitted that the mess in the house is your problem and not hers. You can talk to your wife with some care and sensitivity. She might want to know that you are going to quit your nagging and complaining and do what you can to be a little more relaxed and fun to be with when you are at home.
Your next option is obvious. If an untidy house is as disturbing to you as I suspect that it is, you could do more around the house to keep it neat and tidy. Give yourself an hour either in the morning, late afternoon or early evening to pick up and organize what is strewn about the house.
The final option has to do with your perceptions. You might want to change some of your personal values and attitudes.
If you were raised by a lady who was a great housekeeper, that is wonderful. But you are living with your wife now, not your mother, and as much you will always admire and appreciate your mom, it might be time to crawl out from Mom’s influence and decide for yourself what is neat and tidy and otherwise important. You do not need to rely on your mother’s legacy to do this for you.
Every marriage has differences. In some marriages, someone might be neater than the other person, someone might be better at household budgeting and generally handling money and someone could be a better parent to little children. In some homes, one of the spouses is often more friendly and sociable with the neighbours, while in other households one person is more comfortable in solitude.
The list of differences between people is endless. Did I mention that sometimes one of the partners is more emotional than the other one?
Differences between people in a marriage become problems only when one or more people in the relationship loves the other only for their strengths and not for their weaknesses. To make it work, you have to love the whole person, all of the plusses and minuses.
If you cannot love your wife for her messiness as well as for her energetic and wonderful smile, then you can only love a small part of her. Imagine how great you would feel, and how wonderful your marriage would be, if you sincerely admired that messy person who is bringing so many new and exciting challenges into your life.
